Most humiliating defeat ever suffered by you

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

Be honest, and write here about the most humiliating defeat you have ever suffered in RTW.

Whith 820 men, mostly peasant levies, comandad by a simple captain, i have lost against the 82 elite men of a 9 star enemy general.

In that moment, i thought of quiting to play RTW....:embarassed:

[Lord Comnenus]

speak to yourself i got 900 libyan but got beaten by 1000 grand spqr army! 2 times!

[Quillan]

I lost a general to a unit of peasants ones...

[Celt Centurion]

As Scipii, I had a good army of Legionary Cohorts, Urban Cohorts, Roman Cavalry, and Archers in Antioch. It was almost a full stack, and because of whatever temple was in there, I was able to get "gold" armor for all.

The reasons that I had such a fine army inside the city, was that it was being attacked almost every turn, and the combination I had in there worked very well to destroy any army (even a full stack) foolish enough to attack the walls alone.

I'd also not yet learned to move the army out, and fill it with peasants, and rebuild buildings of my own type, (Roman in this case.)

The place revolted, and I found myself standing on the bridge to the North of the City.

There was already one full stack Egyptian Army coming at me from North of the River. Then I was on the bridge, with another full stack Egyptian Army coming out of the city. This included Pharaoh's Guards, Pharaoh's Archers, Desert Axemen, and all sorts of cavalry and chariots, all with gold armor of course.

Both Egyptian Armies arrived on the battlefield at the very beginning, and both hit me simultaneously from both sides of the bridge.

I got my hiney kicked.

I pulled up the saved game and tried again.

I tried 4 more times and got my butt kicked every time!

Then, just for the hallubit, I tried again, but this time, I let the AI do it.

Normally, the AI loses battles I could easily have won.

In this case though, the AI won it for me with very few casualties.

I sent some units to Tarsus to retrain, and laid siege with the remainder, as well as some units from Tarsus, and took it back.

But, it was humiliating to lose that fine Army 5 times to the Egyptians, and have the AI effortlessly win it.

Strength and Honor

Celt Centurion

[El Diablo]

Whilst not technically a defeat, last night whilst playing as the Julii (on E/E I might add as I am still getting the hang of the game) I seiged a Briton town and was attacked by a full stack Briton Army I did not see coming.

That would not be a problem as I had nigh on a full stack to compensate.

What the battle lines were drawn I noticed that there was only one unit of Chariots in the city(or town really) so I sent one ram to bash the gate in whist leaving the rest of the army to wait for the Briton Onslaught (it did not initially come) so with the gate down I sent three full units of Hastati and two full units of Velities to "take out" the charoits in the town centre and force the big Briton army to attack me in my favorable position. (five units v one easy meat right - especially as I have read not to attack charoits with horses).

Needless to say I have fought the gauls a few times but not the Britons and there grrrr chariots.

They went straight through my infantry and destroyed my velites before I was forced to send two units of barbarian cav to save the day. When they arrived and killed the "general" - oh sorry the KING!!! I was not happy with routing hasati and Velities everywhere. With the town square taken I just ran the clock down as I was rather bitter and twisted.

The funny thing is (and those not from the UK or Australia, New Zealand or South Africa might not get it but..) being a Kiwi whenever we play England at Rugby they sing "swing low sweet chariot".

I now really really really hate chariots.
(note to the moderators - that was really hard not to swear :laugh4: )

[GeneralHankerchief]

City defense. Stone walls. I had placed my men in good spots to break up the enemy's siege engines (they had slightly more men than me, quality was about even). Bad thing is, the enemy sneaks a ram around to a side gate. By the time I realized and sent archers to try to set it on fire, they were already busting down the gate.

Just my luck it's a huge city, and so I desperately had to pray that my men finished off the other troops on the walls quickly, and then that they would get back to the center square in time.

The three minutes ended with about five units thisclose to the center square. I couldn't believe it. I quit in disgust and didn't play for the rest of the day.

[professorspatula]

I once lost a unit of slightly upgraded peasants to some light cavalry. I cried myself to sleep that night.

[fallen851]

I had 4 units of town watch, and 2 generals, and I was taking on some lame rebel spearmen a long with a squad of slingers in Iberia. They were on the side of the mountain, but I like "screw it, i outnumber them like 5-1" so I just charged everyone up.

No one came back alive, except the two generals. I don't think I killed any of the rebels either.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

As a Scipii, I lost a full stack -- not very experienced but made up of a goodly mix of Hastati/Princs/Archers two Generals and 3-4 cav units.

12 Mac Lancers charged frontally in a broad line and crushed the entire force, then mowed down the routers as 1 Scip unit after another briefly regained discipline just long enough to keep the slaughter going.

Another time, I had a full stack of Brutes attacking a smaller force of Greek phalangites in the Peleponese. While winning solidly, I ran out of time. My troops and general evaporated leaving nothing and delaying the attack of Greece for a decade.

[gardibolt]

I've had really bad luck with forest battles, to the point that I avoid them whenever. I've been Roman forces slaughtered by Germans with inferior numbers in the woods. I just can't keep track of what's going on and inevitably get destroyed before I can react (I don't use the Pause button).:oops:

[SOSamurai]

Several months ago (so I don't remember all the details), I was attacking a settlement with (I believe) just over a 1000 hastati and nothing else on huge unit size settings (I very rarely attack with armies without a general, or with just one unit type, but I was trying to be clever attempting a minor blitz campaign).

I got through the gate no problem and defeated a few enemy units, with not much left standing between me and the town square and most of my army intact. I remember at least one more obstacle though. A (huge unit-sized) group of elephants (I believe they were archer mercs, but I honestly can't remember for sure) wandering about on the, now, not-so-large-looking town square.

I marched my 1000 or so hastati towards the town center getting them into position, all the while thinking to myself "We'll I have nearly 1000 crack troops with projectiles, I should be able to win this.", when suddenly the buggers charge at me right into the middle of a formation-less mesh of hastati.

I made three mistakes that day.
One was to go into battle without a general.
The second was to automatically assume a group of wild hell beasts would let me line up my army without moving.
The last mistake was to commit the rest of my hastati to melee attack the tanks instead of falling back and spear 'em to death at the expense of a few hundred romans.
Instead I watch one unit of elephants break nearly 1000 hastati relatively quickly. I don't know the death-toll but i'm fairly sure it was at least 50%, and the other 50% disappeared off of the face of Europe, probably retiring after witnessing that horrifying massacre.
I also retired that day, at least from that campaign. It really did ruined my plans and I felt like hiding in a corner and crying myself to sleep rather than continue.

I now never use unbalanced and/or leaderless armies unless I have to, and whenever I see greyskins I make sure I can take them down before I attempt to take them on.

Also, in the early versions of RTW, I had a few bad experiences with large chariot armies. But not so much in the later patches.

[Somebody Else]

Defending Carthage with a Roman 9* general - admittedly, fending off about 7 sieges in a row had reduced my forces somewhat - but the 400 or so left were all rather high valour, more than capable of fending off a stack of Carthaginians/Numidians. Numidians assault, as I'm preparing my battle lines - placing units etc. I press 'enter' by mistake. Assault begins with none of my men on the walls, in completely indefensible positions. Still, I kill half their army, but lose the city nonetheless.

[Motep]

I had two bannerfulls of troops such as liblan spearman, poeni infantry, iberian infantry, long shields, round shields, and a few elephants, as well as 3 family members. I went up against half a bannerfull of triarii, principles, and 4 0r 5 family members. I could do nothing but weep, as the enemy infantry :knight: decimated mine:knight:, and their generals routed my elephants:fainting: and then the worst of all...my stampeding elephants charged into my infanry, getting killed by the enemy infantry and falling on top of my men. 2 of my generals were slaughtered by theirs. but my other general, Theagus the Conquerer, killed 3 of theier generals, but I deemed
the battle to risky, and withdrew him from the battle with his remaining 7 bodygaurd. (unit scale is on huge) He and about 200 of the infantry and cavaly that routed made it safely back to Capua. So much for an easy conquest of rome.
I was carthage and my enemy was the senate.

[Motep]

I was playing the Carthaginaians and had recently taken Carthago-Nova. The peasants revolted and shooed my army away. They had a bunch of peasants in their army, witha few spainish scuutarii, most with gold chevrons and stars. I counted them littele, they were peasants right? My army consited of 2 generals, about 10 of the sacred band infantry, a few peltasts, and a couple of sacred band cavalry. I auto-resolved andd lost everybody...so of course i swore and beat on the desk...but I later calmed down and reloaded the campign. I fought the battle myself this time and was doing fine, inside the city, few casualties, and routing peasants everywhere. I made it to the city center, but with nobody running, my troops were drastically reduced to less then half of my original number. The enemy had a fraction of their original units to. I summoned up my remaining troops qand surged the city square. Mistake. My infantry was dwn in a minute, followed by my auxilaries, which included my general. But I remember that I had left some infantry by the gate and rushed them over before my generals died. They at least were able to kill the remaining enemy. Phyrric victory. However, the troop numbers in the settlement were so low, the peasants revolted again and landed themselves the same breakneck troops. :fainting:

[Motep]

When I was playing the Brutii, thgings were going well. I had conquerd most of greece and was about to move on the macedonians. This was in the early days before i knew not to charge pikes. I brought my army, A bunch of hastati, some dogs, archers and a general, against theirs of pikes and compainons. Disaster. I caharged their pikees with my infantry and was losing men left and right. By the time my infanrty worked past the pikes, their cavalry:charge: surged upon my infantry and took them out. I thhen tried my luck withe the dogs, but ther cav had moved behing their infantry and my dogs were slaughtered by them. My Archers were slowly running out of ammo, when thier cav bum-rushed my general. Instant painfull death. My archers were soon assaulted and quikly defeated. I lost my best general that day and I swore revenge upon the macedonians. I never truly defaeted them untill after the marian reforms and I got urban-cohorts.

[Goalie]

Be honest, and write here about the most humiliating defeat you have ever suffered in RTW.

Whith 820 men, mostly peasant levies, comandad by a simple captain, i have lost against the 82 elite men of a 9 star enemy general.

In that moment, i thought of quiting to play RTW....:embarassed:

What units did these elite men happen to be? In all truth you should have lost that battle anyways. Peasant levies against anyone isnt a very good combination, especially a 9 star general, even out numbered 10:1, i would have expected to loose.


I've had really bad luck with forest battles, to the point that I avoid them whenever. I've been Roman forces slaughtered by Germans with inferior numbers in the woods. I just can't keep track of what's going on and inevitably get destroyed before I can react (I don't use the Pause button).:oops:

Well there is a pretty simple explaination for this, Germans are amazing the forest. They are very good against romans if used correctly. They get a pretty big combat bonus in woods, also did you enemy happen to have berzerkers, those usually scare the crap out of most units. Even if they didnt have berzerkers, they probalby had some kinds of axemen, which are very good agianst roman armour.

[Bombasticus Maximus]

Thats why it's always fun invading germany... :yes:

[Rex_Pelasgorum]

What units did these elite men happen to be?

They were the units composing the Eastern Generals Squad...
And some armenian heavy cataphtracts....

[jhhowell]

I ran into some super-peasant rebels near Siwa last night. I've come to regard chariots as ideal anti-rebel units, so I sent my new one down to take these guys out. Charge, disengage, charge, disengage, repeat, rest, repeat, repeat - and despite being Shaken or Wavering the whole time, the peasants never break and eventually cause my chariots to lose control. Adding insult to injury, I sent in the Levy Spearmen unit from the Siwa garrison to mop up the remaining 78 peasants (of 120 originally). Somehow those peasants were able to mostly ignore the spears and walk right up to the phalanx's front row, and they inflicted near 1:1 casualties before finally breaking at 1/6 of their original strength. I was quite concerned that these peasants might have managed to rout a full strength pike phalanx in a frontal attack (and they would have, if the chariots hadn't chewed them up in the first battle)! If only I could buy peasants that good! :beam:

[Goalie]

They were the units composing the Eastern Generals Squad...
And some armenian heavy cataphtracts....

Well there is your explaination. I would take cataphracts and a general outnumbered 10 to 1 any day over peasant levies. Heck I would take them outnumbered 20:1 Like the quote from one of the loading screens, "valour is superior to numbers". That is a very good general rule of thumb.

[Shottie]

My battle wasnt humiliating but it was still a loss. I defended a town with about 4 units against a whole stack of guals, I was the Romans in the RTR. It wasnt very pretty but I killed a crap load of them nasty barbarians!:furious3:

[Roman_Man#3]

my battle wasnt a loss, but it was still humiliating. i, carthage, attacked syracuse, under the dominion of the house of scipii. i had 8 iberians, a merc pelt, 2 towers, elies, 2 small shields, and 2 generals. i thought it would be a cake walk. practically all of my iberians(save 20 or so out of the 640 of them) were killed by 3 hastati, 1 archer guy, and velite. i thought it was over for good then. i had captured the gate, which saved me the battle. i sent an elie into the town watch and hastati watching the gate, followed by the rest of the cav. we destroyed them all. then they went on thier merry way to the town square. when alas, a poor unit of equites tried to kill us. we destroyed them. once we made it to the square, i discovered it was gaurded by 2 full unit equites and a 40 or 50 man general unit. i had 2 (about half men) small shields, 2 diminished generals, and 11 elies. i figured it all or nothing. i sent my elies head long into them, followed by my cavalry(my very small infantry force now mopping up what remained of the enemy infantry.) we turned out the victors in the square, which in a sense made us the victors of the battle.
although we destroyed their stronghold on sicily, we do not have very many troops now, and i am not sure how much longer we will survive.

[Slartibardfast]

Mine was last night.

I was playing a short campain as the Arverni Gauls using the Europa Barbarorum 0.74 beta mod with the Resources Patch. After some dozen or so mooves, of what I must say was a brilliant strategy and clinically efficient tactical command on my part, I found myself about to siege the last Adui stronghold, end the Gallic Civil War and expand to hit Rome before she has expanded her territory or got a single large mobile army.

Thinking "How good am I!", the siege is quickly over with a minimum of causualties for the troops and I go back out to the stategy map and basking in my own glory hit end turn.

"You have been Defeated" - Selukia wins.
:embarassed: :embarassed: :embarassed:

Talk about instant kharma.

[Ciaran]

I have a disturbing tendency to lose my custom battles in BI when I play with barbarian factions. No fancy opponents, usually made up much the same as my own army, but for one reason or another they tend to beat me constantly. Must be me underestimating the weak morale in BI :oops:

[johhny-turbo]

As the Eastern Empire in BI, Jeuruselum with it's epic walls rebelled against me. I didn't have any 'real' military units just peasents and the spear guys (the ones that aren't as disciplined as legionaries but are better then town guard) ment to keep the peace in the outlying provinces so I recruited some mercernaries, as in a unit of camel riders and two ballista and attacked at least 4 times with my "army" each time getting my guys get shaken by the barrage of arrows by the time they get to the breach and fight the enemy that they run away. I finally managed to build up a real army and massacred the place.

Though I'm sure whatever heretical sect that took the place is claiming "divine intervention"

[Comrade Alexeo]

I don't know if this is the most humiliating defeat I've ever suffered, but it's certainly the most recent - I just fought it.

***

Here's the sitrep:

I'm doing a VH/VH Brutii campaign, version 1.0 (because my game has started refusing to patch :shame: ). It's a short campaign, intended essentially as a time-waster until M2TW comes out, and since Brutii was the only Roman I hadn't done, I figured I'd try it out.

It's 240 BC. I blitzed Carthage (on a whim, mostly, but also to stem the growth of the Scipii), so I own: Tarentum, Croton, Lilybaeum, Carthage, Thapsus, Palma, Thermon, Appolonia, and Segestica.

Wait, you say. You only have three Peloponnesian cities?

Yeah...

I'm embarassed to say that I've been able to make virtually no headway whatsoever against Macedon, and have been on the defensive for years. Macedon and I traded Thermon back and forth several times before I managed to establish a foothold, but assault after assault has left my garrison absolutely devastated, and I lack an easy way to get much more to there. Appolonia saw less fighting until recently, when I repulsed another Macedonian siege - though, again, at massive cost.

Now, I'm not too pleased with myself here. I decide I'm going to end this, once and for all. I prepared 3 full stacks - one from the Carthaginian campaign, one from Italy, and one from bribing the Julii (hey, if it works) - and a half-stack of ships and began my war against Macedon.

Phase 1 was to crush the Macedonian navy. In this, I mostly succeeded; they still have one huge stack hanging around Sicily but (knock on wood :smash: ) I've been able to avoid that.

Phase 2 was landing my Carthaginian stack near Thermon to force back the Macedonians. It was an unmitigated disaster; I crushed all Macedonians before me but they sent so many that eventually I had to pull what remained of my army into the walls of Thermon - where they were promptly besieged, threw back the assault, besieged again...

Phase 3 involved sending my main Italian stack to the heart of Macedon while the third stack moved up north, as, because of my failure to stop the Macedonians faster, they have expanded almost as far as Germania :no:

With that in mind, I led my main Italian army straight to Thessalonica and besieged it, hoping to draw out the garrison and the Macedonian army nearby...

***

THE BATTLE OF THESSALONICA, 240 BC

I had an ace up my sleeve.

Or so I thought.

After many a multiplayer battle (back when my game would :furious3: patch), I had developed the use of the Roman quincunx formation with various troop sets. It wasn't foolproof, of course, but I learned how to make it quite devastating against all manner of enemies - particularly phalanx armies.

I had 2,836 troops, deployed like so:

H_H_H_H_H_H
_P_P_P_P_P_
____AAA____
_____H_____
_____G_____

I also had two units of Equites, one on either side of my formation.

The main Macedonian army consisted of some 2,565 troops - mostly Phalanx Pikemen, with, IIRC, 4 units of Light Lancers, two on their left flank, one on the right flank, and one as the general unit. The other Macedonian army of 441 consisted of a general and some cavalry, but he didn't really come into the fight.

The Macedonians were deployed in a typical formation - infantry line with cavalry on either side. They began to advance.

Skirmishing between cavalry began on my right flank. I was stunned to see my Equites beat off one of the units of Light Lancers, and I moved up a Hastati cohort to reinforce them - but, alas, the next Light Lancer unit smashed my Equites, who scattered. My Hastati easily pummeled the Lancers but by that time the main engagement had begun.

Things began to go my way at first. The pike line became disjointed as it moved on my first line, and I began moving the second-line Principes through the gaps, who would then swing around and hit the Phalanx Pikemen in the rear.

This worked on my left flank well, and the pikemen began to crumble. My right flank also was doing their job, but they were harassed by the return of the Lancers.

Unfortunately, though, my center was not so lucky. The AI fought better than most people online against the formation - rather than concentrating on the first line, they moved through the gaps and also attacked my Principes, which stopped them from performing their flanking jobs. The line began to buckle.

Now, this sort of thing had happened to me before, but the nature of the battle generally led one or both of the enemy flanks to be turned, allowing me to then wipe out the center. Hoping that my center would hold, I sent up my reserve Hastati unit as reinforcements and then swung my left-flank Equites around and charged them into the engaged Phalangites, which would then allow me to concentrate on the center.

Alas, the line did not hold, and my center shattered. I'd finally turned the left flank, but by this time it was too late. My right soon collapsed as well as the pikemen moved to envelop the envelopers.

Knowing the battle was lost, I called a withdrawal with my remaining forces. Only a few managed an orderly retreat, though - most of the rest simply routed, and many were cut down by the enemy pursuit, which now included the Lancers of the other Macedonian army.

https://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4143/brutiismashedki9.jpg

It was absolutely devastating, and I was absolutely devastated.

My army was in tatters, with my disgraced general just barely escaping with his own life. My grand scheme of sticking a knife through their heart ended instead with the blood of over 2,200 scattered over the outskirts of Thessalonica.

All is not lost; Placus Crassus will likely be able to reunite with the third, final stack of my scheme, which has abandoned its northern march and cautiously begun moving towards Bylazora. I can recruit new armies, which will soon include Triarii from, ironically, Carthage.

All is not lost, but the bones of the fallen will litter the Thessalonican plain for years to come...

[Severous]

Average Defeat when I had the advantage and was defending a bridge.

About to drown is my commander..he is running down the bank into the river.

It was a huge Thracian King unit that did the damage. Nothing I had could stand against him....well not the way I played it they couldnt.

https://img475.imageshack.us/img475/5002/germ514gn8.th.jpg (https://img475.imageshack.us/my.php?image=germ514gn8.jpg)

[Braden]

I remember one now.

First one was when I first encountered Britons in the game – Yes, those darn chariots!!

I had a decent army and it was about even on numbers but I lacked missiles and basically if the chariots weren’t slowly taking my men apart with their arrows they were isolating and destroying Cohorts!

I stupidly fought to the bitter end and lost TWO high ranking Generals. Not to mention a near full stack army – utterly destroyed, run to the hills and never coming back.

I always took enough archers after that AND made a point of withdrawing when things looked too bad.

Oh….and the times when, tired and late at night I accidentally click “Auto-Resolve” and suddenly find I’ve lost not just the battle but a full stack army!


....I did remember more, but someone just asked me a question about somethign else and they're gone :wall:

[x-dANGEr]

Me : Carthage. Four Iberian Infantry units, four Round Shield Cavalry units, and a General Bodyguards unit.

Enemy: Greeks. A General Bodyguards unit.

Campaign Difficulty: VH/VH
Place: Sicily

Actions: At the start of the battle, he just charged at my units one by one and decimated them. Though, I replayed the battle seriously (Without underestimating it), and I won with one of my units routing.. Simply, I put one unit of Iberian Infantry on loose formation as a buffer to my other infantry, to receive the charge. And when it did, I charged with everything.

Seriously, Carthage campaign is the most enjoyable in RTW.

[pevergreen]

Theres me, holding the Iberian Peninsula (as Iberia) thinking i should take another island/easy to defend place. So i build up a 14 unit army of highest tech infantry (6 units) highest cav (4 units) General and 3 ranged... land in Britan, moving to take a small town, when bam! 2 Full stacks ambush me. Was snowy woods...i have high tech units though, and after playing the Historical Battle with Julius and facing the two pronged ambush..i figure, why not? i form up a line like this:


----------------
- - -
-

First row is infantry, then ranged and then general
Cav was on wings (not too far away)
The two 20 unit armies (i hate the low upkeep) charge head on into my line, all warbands...and decimate my uber 1337 units....ouch.. they (mine) had armour 2 wepon 2 exp all at least 3...my army run with 130 guys left

[Matrixman]

I remember one now.

First one was when I first encountered Britons in the game – Yes, those darn chariots!!



Same for me.

When I first encountered them I thought who the hell are these guys?.

Absolute chaos as I tried to reform ranks. I didn't lose the battle but learnt a humiliating lesson as what I thought would be an easy victory turned into a "tail between legs" near disaster.:oops:

[dacdac]

man...i really don't want to do this. As Seleucia, i thought a unit of elephants and 5 pikemen could take out 3 units of rebel peasants. Marching towards them i get ambushed by a full stack of egyptian chariots and spearmen, and end up killing zero men, while all mine died because my elephants trampled every single man i had.
My loss: 436
Their losses: 0

[ByzantineKnight]

man...i really don't want to do this. As Seleucia, i thought a unit of elephants and 5 pikemen could take out 3 units of rebel peasants. Marching towards them i get ambushed by a full stack of egyptian chariots and spearmen, and end up killing zero men, while all mine died because my elephants trampled every single man i had.
My loss: 436
Their losses: 0

Ouch!

[A. Smith]

my most humiliating defeat ever is a town defence. I was greece, and i had a few militia hoplites and one or two standard hoplites in a small town (with the first level walls) and i had been attacked by a relatively small army (a few hundred men, including some cavalry). they besieged the city, built one ram, and attacked.

Now, it should have been an easy battle: they only had one ram, so they were bound to come by the gate. knowing that, i stacked all of my hoplites as close as they could be near my gate.

the firstpart of the battle went rather well. they took down the gates and charged a unit or two, that i repelled easily. however, due to my heavy stacking, they were out of position, and they had even began chasing the routers. at that precise moment, their cavlary charged in, routing all of my disorganized militia hoplites, which in tunr routed my normal hoplites. they then proceded to kill oll of them while they routed towards the town center.

I have never re-organized hoplites while being attacked since then.

[Afkazar]

i havent really had to many defeats.most of em had been from me sending a single unit out to get enemy army info.

I suppose my greatest loss was when i lost antioch.i sent out my army and was outnumbered badly.vs eygptians.I lost 2 generals that day.But eventually id take it back.

[TheBritonBasher]

One time my town rebelled and turned into an egyptian town and I looked at the unit banner and I saw alot of pharoah's bowmen. I tried to fight but pharaoh's bowmen are incredibly good when massed.

[Roman_Man#3]

how is that humiliating. a bit more in depth would go a long way.

[Afkazar]

how is that humiliating. a bit more in depth would go a long way.He got beat by bowmen in CC.thats pretty humiliating

[Roman_Man#3]

being beaten by a bunch of pharoahs bowmen isnt that humiliating, they are pretty good.

[Orb]

In EB, starting off as Armenia, I had a decent mixed (read 10 units light cav + archers) army against six units of rebel horse archers.

I got pwned.

I attacked uphill, assuming that it would be easy and they retreated as they shot all of my infantry archers and most of my cavalry into dust. I lost one general, three units of cavalry, three units of archers and the rest of my men retreated ignobly.

It was glorious :D

Edit: I didn't cause a single casualty, either :D

[Roman_Man#3]

that is pretty humiliating!

[Discoman]

I was playing as Macedonia currently trying to survive a full attack from the Scippi and the Brutii. I got cocky and sent a veteran army of mainly phalanx and a 5 star general against a roman army of proterians and onagers, the onagers took out around 1/2 of my army while I made the rest wait for attacking legions. I lost my general and all of my good troops in a crushing defeat. My army was around 800 against 500. It ended my foothold in Greece.

[Wizardofthedribble]

When carrying out my first seige assault on Pergamon as the Brutii I constructed 4 seige towers, 2 rams and 2 sap points.

No sooner had my rams got to the gates when they were well and truly on fire! Simultaneously I maneouvred my 4 seige towers towards the walls. 2 were ablaze before they touched the wall, but to my excitement one of the seige towers appeared to have made it to the city wall and the Principes were pouring out.

Unfortunately I had forgotten about the sap points, and in my naievity I had sent the above seige tower to the wall directly in line with it. My sappers promptly undermined the said wall and the entire unit of successful Principes fell to their deaths in the stony abyss... I laughed heartily at this disastrous start to the battle and loaded.

[Poulp']

I was leading a geek (I keep it ^^) army in the land strip between Corinth and Athens against Macedon, it was the big clash for the control of Southern Greece.

I was fielding about 800 men against 900 macs and reinforcements about 700.
I managed to crush the first army and kept watching if my militia cav could chase the general down.

Suddenly I got a "your general has been killed" message.
Antigonos of Sparta died foolishly, watching his militia cav running down the opposing general while Gyras, leading the second mac army, slipped through my line and charged my general in the back, killing him instantly.

The hoplites kept fighting but eventually lost, routed and were run down.

It was the starting point of a 13 year long war.

[HumphreysCraig00]

Sorry if its long winded but I like being descriptive.


My most humiliating CPU defeat in memory is I had an army of

8 Equites varying between 1 and 2 bronze

1 General

1 Unit of Thracian Mercenaries.

I was taking Campus Narbo (most northern thracian city name may be wrong though) from

2 units of falxmen

2 units of peltasts

1 Thracian general (68 men strong)

1 peasant horde



I used my mercs to push the battering ram and broke through their gate, which they had stuck a unit of 2 bronze Falxmen behind, so I broke the wall to the right of it and they stick a unit of peltasts behind that. I thought these should be easy so told my mercs to break the wall to the left of the gate and sent a unit of equites into the peltasts who routed them with 2 volleys, my equites took 30+ casualties, causing 3...

This isnt going to well I thought so I made my mercs break all 3 wall sections to the left of the gate, which were then covered by \ Nothing [] Falxmen [] Peltasts [] Gate (falxmen)/.

I sent my mercs into the right set of peltasts to whom they caused 30 casualties before being routed by the peltasts in close combat by a charge from the thracian general through the peltasts which completely vaporised them.

While the general was down there I sent half my force through the right set of peltasts and the other half through the empty hole.

The peltasts routed one unit with a volley and then the another of the unit were routed in close combat with the peltasts with the right set of peltasts firing their remaining ammo at them A charge from the gate falxmen and the general cleared the rest of the peltast half of my army who got stuck in the mass of peltasts and falxmen and were cut down from 440 men to 150 something.

The unit to going through the empty hole (2 equites + the general + the recovered equite) was charged by the falxmen who immediately routed the understrength unit (which then totally destroyed itself by running through them instead of away from them) and then I charged everyone else into the falxmen who routed another equites unit (which again destroyed itself in the same fashion) then the thracian general + the falxmen and some volleys from the peltasts routed what was left.

So what remained was 170+ Horsemen and the general on his own from

880 equites 49 Generals guard and 160 mercs.

I caused a total of 68 casualties.

That was rather horrifying so I loaded my game up and broke the seige and bolted :)

I shouldnt have loaded my game up really but I was peeved off so did anyway :)

[César Victor]

I'm only on my first campaign so I am yet to face anything as truley humiliating as the above mentioned. A few years into the campaign, I had my faction heir, Vibius Julius (I think) bunked up with a few Hastati in Massila. Suddenly, from the unexplored north, an army of Gauls, three times the size of mine descended on Massila. Before I could send help for my young heir, those Gaul scum attacked the small town and destroyed each member of the army.

Now I have a taste for Gaul blood which, despite my kickass assassin laying waste to many Gaul generals, hasn't been fullfilled 30+ years later.

[davidchandlee]

It was my first large city defence, a stone-walled city against a large army. I noticed part of the army with one tower seemed to just stand there doing nothing. Another part broke my wall but I just managed to hold against them with nearly matching losses. I thought all was well and the battle was over until I got the message that that other group had climbed up and got a detachment to the main square which I forgot was the real objective.:oops:

[HumphreysCraig00]

I just had a truly terrible one lol

Army 1

5 Units of town watch 0 exp, 5 barbarian mercenaries 1-2 Exp, 3 Spanish mercenaries 1 exp, 1 heavy peltast mercenary group 0 exp, 2 Rhodian slingers 2 exp

Army 2

1 Barbarian mercenaries 2 exp

Enemy

Spanish faction leader with 100 early bodyguards 4 exp

I walked both armies upto him, he charged Army 2 who I halted and then warcried and his charge litterally completely wiped out all 240 before it slowed from charging speed, he lost 0 men.

He then turned and charged the town watch in army 1, who held with no casualties from the original charge, I completely surrounded him withevery melee unit in my army
with the slingers and heavy peltasts firing on him.

He lost 0 men

He then routed my barbarian mercenaries which auto routed the rest of the army except the slingers, every man in my army who was routing ran into the generals unit and he killed 1500 men within about 40 seconds.

He lost 0 men still.

He ran down most of the routing units but 1 Barb merc 40 strong regrouped as did 1 spanish merc 60 strong. He charged them and they were vapourised.

He had still 0 losses.

He then charged the slingers who had him under fire most of the time, they oddly enough didnt immediately rout and caused 34 casualties in melee before routing and being destroyed.

SO the end numbers were

Close defeat (apparently!!!)

Me Start 3020 men, end 114 men

Spaniards Start 100 end 66 men



I was so sickeningly annoyed I forgot to get a screenshot but the general is still there if you want me to march another pretty much fullstack on him and get another terrible defeat.


I know im on Vh/Vh but 100 men killing 3000 While surrounded with no advantages to speak of is ridiculous :/:smash:

This is going to hold back my conquest of spain for at least half a century (im going to have to wait for the guy to die of old age lol)

[antisocialmunky]

Lol, sounds like fighting Byzantines in MTW bud, sorry...

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I had a whole campaign recently where this happened. I was Pontos (in EB), starting with my capital city. I took Sinope, and was marching on Nikaia, but even though I took Nikaia, I lost my family member with that army. Then a rebel stack shows up and within a few turns was sieging my capital (Amaseia). I thought I could hold out, and sent my Sinope units from the coast inland with some Greek regionals to try and defeat this "pretender" army, but in the first battle my faction leader was lost. It ended in a draw, with the siege still continuing. I wanted to pull back to Sinope with my one character, but at that moment the Seleucids betrayed me and laid siege to Nikaia. I had to get Amaseia back, took all my Sinope units and my faction leader, and attacked the pretenders again, but lost the battle, my faction leader, and the campaign all in one go. It was fun, but I think I'll switch from VH(strat)/M(battle) back to M/M or H/M. :laugh4: At least when I'm playing as Pontos.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Guys, which one of my thousands of crushing victories do you wish me to talk about :grin:

[Quintus Of Pompeii]

Guys, which one of my thousands of crushing victories do you wish me to talk about :grin:

The one where you almost didn't lose!
And perhaps the one where, you were crushed by an army of peasants to your cluster of elephants ~:thumb:

[TevashSzat]

I was armenia and had a garrison of about 9 eastern infantry units and one general. A rebel appeared of about 5 peasants and 3 eastern infantry. I though it was gonna be easy so i charged everyone into the battle. In the very first charge, my general was killed and a mass rout soon followed. I lost basically three quarters of my garrison and the city rebelled next turn and i ended having to take it from an almost full stack of units.

[LuckyDog Trojan]

Jullii vs. Gaul
Not my most humiliating defeat - but one I recall that particularly annoyed me was a battle that included the FOOLISH loss (on my part) of a young, 8-star general.

My strong army of various units (Hastati, Principes, Equites, Velties, archers, etc.) taking on a large army of Gaul infantry & warband units garrisoned in a Gaulis town with simple wooden walls for defenses.

The battle went as planned... until the end - My Romans mopping up in relatively easy fashion (2:1 to 3:1 kill ratio in my favor). Finally, with all my 'ducks in a row' ready to make the final, conquering push into the town center, I got careless. Heady from wine, I made two tactical mistakes: (1) I FAILED to closely inspect the last Gaulic unit group (cavalry) located in the town square - I thought it was 'light' cavalry. As it turned out, it was a Gaul general of star stature astride a 'heavy' cavalry unit. (2) In the muck of my troops & cavalry coming up the street for the kill, I mistakenly clicked on my prized, wonder-boy general unit and sent him into the fray. :oops:

Needless to say, it was too late to correct my mistake as I was about to do so when the 'heroic death' notification for the 'next of kin' came up. Boy was I torqued!!!

I was so distraught that I ordered my captain to exterminate the town population. I then ordered several of my captains to 'fall upon their own swords' for not providing me with good intel. Drinking on the eve of battle is now an offense punishable by death. I'm now known in those parts as: "Precarious the Intolerable". Others call me: "Sadistius the Sober One". :laugh4:

[César Victor]

An enemy British army were sallying my seiging forces. They were composed of only light infantry and a few cavalry and I thought "Bah, this should be alright..." I left the PC to watch a bit of TV while it loaded, completely forgot about the game, came back about 10 minutes later to find my army flattened into a pile of rotting Roman flesh. Twas kind of funny how the "The Battle is Lost" banner popped up a few seconds after I returned.

Twas kinda humiliating.

[ByzantineKnight]

An enemy British army were sallying my seiging forces. They were composed of only light infantry and a few cavalry and I thought "Bah, this should be alright..." I left the PC to watch a bit of TV while it loaded, completely forgot about the game, came back about 10 minutes later to find my army flattened into a pile of rotting Roman flesh. Twas kind of funny how the "The Battle is Lost" banner popped up a few seconds after I returned.

Twas kinda humiliating.

Lol, that sucks!

[455trt43trg]

I played Karthago, had battle against scipii.
My army was much stronger than theirs, I attack with elephants, their archers fire arroed my elephants, and in panic they run over half of my army and I lost. :embarassed:

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Than sounds very familiar :embarassed:

[Nik00117]

I was taking on Sparta, and I was using my normal tactic aganist phalanxes engage the enemy with cheaper units use calavry to flank and hit from rear. So I had 3 calavry and my fraction leader fighting.

Anyways I accidently did a full charge with my general right in front aganist the phalanxes he died, instantly...I had it set on double speed so... It really really sucked.

I still took the city.

Another time I had lost a battle but it was well worth it. I was taking on the Brits and well they had gotten 2 armies vs my 1 damaged army. I had a spy in their ranks and saw that not only was the Fraction leader in this group but the Fraction heir and 3 other faimly members :) I fought the bottle killed the 5 faimly members and a large portion of the armies it was a clear defeat, but the damage that killing those faimly members was priceless.

I once left carthage with only 1 general, and 3 town watch men, well I had my army 2 full turns away. The Carthage had sent in a fleet of men, and had onsagers already and took out carthage like it was nothing. Lost my general and the city.

[Ossie The Great]

i onces had buitl up a really big army of principes and hastati

i was seige a briton town when it came to the battle i lost my entire
army to the britons ( but the did have a few units of chosen swords men and chariots ) :confused: :confused:

but other than that i am usally quite good on the battle field,:duel:
not so good on the campain map thou :duel: :duel:

[coalition]

"Bumped"

[Shieldmaiden]

Ok.

My first Scipii Grand Campaign. A lot of Africa got conquered by Carthage, who decided to go Elephant-mad due to some AI quirk. We'd meet Elephants in every other battle...

Que investment in Skirmishers, Archers, and...

Incendiary Pigs. The Anti-Elephant weapon! :idea2:

A stack of my Sicily-veteran Hastati (4), a few Principes (2), and ample Skirmishers (3-4) and Archers (3). And 3 units of War Pigs. The Carthaginians had 2 units of War Elephants plus a lot of Light Infantry (5-6), a 1 Light Cavalry unit, and a General.

Pretty much a pushover huh?

Que arrows and letting the Carthies charge to be cut down in a storm of Pilum and Javelins... and the Elephants driven off by the Incendiary Pigs - its what their for, right? :inquisitive:

Except, no.

The Incendiary Pigs veered off in front of the Hastati to avoid the terrifying War Elephants, then turned round to flee from the charging infantry and broke the battle line :furious3:

Then the Carthies hit it.

My archers hadn't killed a single elephant, due to bad luck (or being prats) :wall:

Within 10 seconds my General had been trodden on and killed, the Hastati were panicking, either knee-deep in smoky bacon, bloodthirsty Carthies, or used as footballs by War Elephants. The Skirmishers and Archers were playing tag with the Carthie General and Light Cavalry :smash:

Final statistics? 400+ Romans died, and 10-ish Carthies (probably War Elephant collateral or pure luck).

I've been playing RTW for two years since... I've never trained another unit of Incendiary Pigs.

Never! :thumbsdown:

[gollum]

Macedonia, hard/hard.

After years of war, the Thracians were history so were the Greeks, the Brutii and the Senate. The SCipii had their holdings in and around Carthage left and the Julii Medoilanum. In the east pontus had gotten a beating out of Asia minor and all the coast from Nicomedia to Lycia was occupied at which point the Egyptians, that i havent faced before, enter the scene. They do an initial push all the way to the coast with (i guess) what mucst have been their early stacks. Easy peasy, they get crushed. and afterwards i replenish and fortify the area and prepare a killer stack that will conquer the east in an Alexander like campaign, delivering defeat after defeat to the opulent, insolent easterners - or so i plan.

And by Zeus! the candidate general appears. He is a newly born military genius with the plus four stars that goes with it and potential for many more after a few victories.

Overjoyed, i pack his stack with all thats fair and good, royal pikes, macedonia cavalry (companions were not available yet) and of course phalanx pikes, archers and peltasts.

Initially all goes well. In a couple of battles the, lets call him, *Alexander* blasts off the static Egyptian troops with arrows before advancing fo the kill - i kinda get a bit excited and a bit bored. And yet somewhere in Galatia along the road to Tarsus a stack with a senior multistar Egyptian family member appears. He has pharao s bowmen and guards in the mix as well as a second family member.

The hell with it - this will be Issus or something - and i decide to pursue. The egyptians park their lot at the root of a local mountain and i doscover that indeed this gives them a considerable height plateau to deply in the tactical map. Still not alarmed however *Alexander advances* his army that is greeted to a hail of arrows at the approach and quick redeployments when i try to rush the phalanxes in off phalanx mode to meet the enemy line. Finally after plenty of casualties, as the lines are about to meet, the Egyptians throw their line to engage the front and their two generals in and behind. Naturally i try to protect the rear of my troops from these horrors and so i launch the two macedonian cavalries and generals BG at them... None survives. Whoever managed to escape the melee fury of the chariots, was goten by the charioteer archers...

Numb and sorrowful i mourned the lost genius and learned the lesson! Chariots own cavalry - period.

!It burnsus!

[GMaximus]

EB 1.1, Hayasdan M/M campaign to get a feeling of how the game was now.

Having discovered the relatively low-cost pwnsomeness of archers in siege battles against the caucasian rebels, I made the mistake of neglecting combined arms and keeping armies of some 3 archers for every unit of infantry. That is, until the Arche, pissed at me for taking Phraaspa on which they obviously had designs, rolls in with half a stack.

'Psht, their lame phalanxes will fall prey to my oh-so-mobile oh-so-pwnsome archers!' I think, looking at what I know about the army composition, which seems to consist of some general I didn't bother to check, a bunch of Pandotopai Phalangitai and some unknown units. Piece 'o cake.

I really should've sent in a spy and checked on that general before battle.

Start of battle, everything's going well. Thanvare and Caucasians are doing their work and butchering Pandotopai, when I notice two disturbing things - one, a large body of cavalry slowly creeping behind the phalanx and two, some highly armored guys on the flanks.

Only too late did I realize that I had stumbled on top of their Basileus. A bodyguard consisting of some 60 uberesque (compared to my crappy Caucasian Spearmen) companions was thrown at my face and started decimating my poor Hai left and right. Quite worried, I decide to hurl all that I have at him and the enormous bodyguard starts whithering away bit by bit. Then my second mistake was thrown into my face.

I found out for the first time that the Arche had some pretty evil elite non-phalanx units, you know those guys in chainmail that look like you should really avoid them. Two units of those guys single-handedly suceeded in halting my semi-succesful attempts at killing off their Basileus, before beginning to demonstrate why you shouldn't rely on archers too much.

I think I lost some 1000 people there, in return killing off some 300, mostly Pandotopai. My entire army went routing afterwards on the campaign map, and I could sympathize - I really didn't want to face the Arche again after that, even though I got back at them later by snatching Media and several other provinces before finally being able to get a decent army in and stop lurking about waiting for the right moment to snatch something.

[Quirinus]

The defeat I remember the most (one that didn't come about as a result of bugs) was when I first made the transition between VE/VE to M/M. At the beginning of the Julii campaign, I took the standing army north towards the Gaul host nearby and played the battle, thinking to annihilate the barbarians. Instead my army was smashed and my general died charging into a skirmisher warband. I restarted the campaign after that. It was a sobering experience-- other than forcing me to actually utilise some basic tactics after this, it also taught me how deadly the barbarian warcry could be.

[coalition]

My general fell in the water during a bridge battle, this triggered a panic event throughout my whole army. I cried myself to sleep that night. I was the defender to make things worse, not the attacker, oh and I forgot to mention I was the Macedonians, pike units are exceptional in Bridge battles.

I learned something new, Ancient soldiers cannot swim, the water was just pure evil back in Ancient Times.

[Spartan198]

None of my losses were really humiliating, as most of the ones I remember the most came about when I was massively-outnumbered and/or backed into a corner (figuratively, not literally).

Though there was that one battle I happened upon in BI where the enemy general was Artorius Castus...

[Mooks]

I got another question to add on.

After this humiliating defeat, how many of you reloaded and tried again?

:smash:

[YouHaveRecieved]

Never once. What is the point in reloading your campaign? You might as well use auto-win in the console or add_money or process_cq.

[Emperor of Graal]

An army of 2 peasants, 2 urban cohort and a general (brutti:region Judea.
VS
An army of
4 Judean zealots and an Egyptian chariot general





Enemy position J for Judeans and G for general





__ __ __ __
j j j j
_
g


And my position, P for peasants ,U for urban cohort and G for general



:: :: __ __ ___
p p U U G

The Urban cohort attacked the Judeans, 2 judeans to 1 Cohort
the peasants were going to pin in the general while My general attacked the enemy general
The peasants were stampeded by the chariots and caused havoc to the Urban cohort
and killed the general. :computer:
I tried the battle again 3 times and when I auto did it I won!!
:wall:

[Spartan198]

You might as well use auto-win in the console or add_money or process_cq.
Hey, not everybody has the financial know-how to make loads of cash or the patience to wait 15 turns for a few necessary buildings to be completed. :smash:

[gollum]

No reloads - reloads are for newbies and occasionals. If you want to learn the units and improve battle performance play custom. If you want to improve campaign play by observing the game and read the forums.

Re-loads are for those that have/to/win.

If the game didnt had defeat as a real possibility along the way there would be no reason to play.

!it burnsus!